Exclusive | Most haunted town in America revealed and a Jersey Shore city ranks top 10
The city that never sleeps apparently has nothing keeping it up at night.New York City finished 68th out of 74 destinations in a new ranking of America’s spookiest places, making it the seventh-least frightening city in the study.The crown went to a Comstock-era boomtown that, with a population of roughly 855, could fit inside a single Manhattan high-rise.Virginia City, Nevada, topped the 2026 Spookiness Index from home security company Vivint, which scored cities on seven factors including reported ghost sightings, haunted places, haunted house attractions, psychic and spiritual businesses, funeral services and eerie Google searches.
Tombstone, Arizona, placed second and Eureka Springs, Arkansas, took third, followed by Galena, Illinois, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and Cape May, New Jersey.Most of those metrics are measured per 10,000 residents, a formula that gives tiny tourist towns a big edge.Virginia City racked up roughly 10,870 spooky searches per 10,000 locals, the highest rate in the study, plus about 124 haunted house attraction listings for the same population.
Vivint acknowledges its Yelp counts can sweep in businesses outside city limits, which helps explain how a town that size logs more than 1,100 funeral service listings per 10,000 people.The raw tallies paint a different picture.Austin, Texas, led the country in reported ghost sightings with 115, ahead of Dallas at 64 and Houston at 48.
Los Angeles claimed the most reported haunted places, with 61.Travelers are also increasingly looking to sleep with the dead.Searches for haunted hotels soared 315% from 2023 to 2025, while interest in haunted houses nearby slipped about 11%.NYC actually logged more reported ghost sightings than any other New York city studied, with 16, along with seven haunted places.
It still finished last in the state, trailing Poughkeepsie (44th) and Buffalo (49th).The Big Apple’s problem is appetite.New Yorkers ran about 104 spooky searches per 10,000 residents, the secon...